Oct. 12, 2010
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa.; -
Q. Can you give us an update on the injuries? Was there one or two areas in particular that really disappointed you in the Illinois game?
I'll answer the second part first. Overall we were poor. I don't think I did a very good job coaching these kids and getting them ready for the game, to be frank with you. We just weren't on top of some things. Didn't make a couple of adjustments we could have made.
The injury thing, it gets worse. (Jack) Crawford's out, (Garry) Gilliam's out, (Eric) Latimore went out and most of the people you saw leave the game (vs. Illinois) are gone; they won't be ready for Minnesota.
Q. Is it a goal of yours to get to 400 victories?
Not right now. Right now it's to get a victory. No, I haven't thought of that.
Q. A couple of players said after the game that some guys need to stop pointing fingers. How much does that bother you and detract from what you're trying to accomplish?
Anytime you start pointing fingers it sure doesn't help. I'm not sure how much of that we're having. As you know, I rarely read the papers, particularly the sports page, because I don't want to be influenced by anything. If there is a lot of finger pointing, I think that's detrimental and doesn't help. I hope there isn't as much as some guys would react to after a tough, not a tough loss, but after a situation like we had against Illinois where we really just got out-played. I don't know how accurate that is, but if it is, that's certainly something that we've got to address this week.
Q. You had mentioned several times earlier in the season about leaders being slow in emerging. Is that still the case or have some guys stepped forward?
Some guys we thought might step to the front have gotten injured. This is probably the...in fact I was talking to our medical people who have been with us for a long time and they said this is the worst (injury) situation we've been in the 24 years that they've been here as the people who are responsible for the medical situation of our players. I think that's been a big problem...you just get used to playing with a guy and then all of the sudden he's out and you've got to bring somebody else in who hasn't had quite enough experience that he can be a leader, No. 1; and No. 2, the people who have played some just having trouble figuring out just how hard they can push them. The coaching staff, we've got to be careful that we don't ask kids to do things they're really not quite ready for. We've got a situation that's going to take some doing to straighten out."
Q. Some fans have been critical of you and the coaching staff with the team's recent performance. What message would you send to those fans, especially the ones who think it might be time for a coaching change?
I haven't got time to even think about that, I'm just trying to get our team a little better.
Q. Do you think that criticism is fair?
I don't even know what kind of criticism it is. Send me detailed list of it and I'll tell you. I don't read the...and I certainly don't listen to any of the commentators on the radio, I don't even listen to ESPN, which I probably should because a lot of times they're very constructive.
Q. Are any of the injuries to the defensive players season ending?
We've got 3 or 4 that definitely won't go out...Going back to (Curtis) Drake, starting out with Drake, (Gerald) Hodges, Gilliam now would be out. I don't know how long Latimore's going to be out; he just got hurt and only played two or three plays Saturday vs. Illinois. He's been in and out physically, so I really think that's a medical situation...As far as I'm concerned, the less we talk about it the better I like it. There's nothing I can do about it. I'm just trying to take care of some things we can do something about. We've got to overcome them. We can't be sitting around moaning about it all the time. People ask me, I didn't bring it, I just don't have time to spend, saying, "well this guy's got a hairline fracture, this guy's got that." I ask the docs, I say, "How long is it going to be?" And they try to give me as accurate an answer as they can. Sometimes they're not sure.
Q. I understand Nick Sukay is out for the year?
That's exactly right. I forgot about Nick. Nick is out for the year.
Q. You have a lot of young players that you rely on. Is there a concern for their morale or with where their heads are at right now after a couple of back-to-back losses and is there anything you can try to do in the bye week to maybe help and try to make sure...
We've got to do something to help them. I have not talked to the kids since the game. We gave them Sunday and yesterday off and we'll meet today and we'll go out with just shells and try to go over some of the mistakes we made. And try to get re-focused on what we've got to do to get better because I thought after we'd played four or five games we'd be a little better football team than we are right now. As I said earlier, I can't be blaming anybody else but myself for that. So, I think that's where we are. We've got to be encouraging. We've got to get some of these kids to realize that they still have the kind of potential that we've felt we had. We've been set back by some things we can't control as we talked about with the injuries, so we've just got to go out and say, "hey, this is what we've got to do to get better, so let's re-commit ourselves to getting better and see where we go."
Q. You, Tom Bradley and Jay all said after the game you would be re-evaluating personnel. Does that mean there are a lot of jobs open over the next week or two and especially are there jobs open on the offensive line?
Well, as I said, sometimes you make statements after the game's over before you have a chance to look at some tapes and have a chance as a staff to compare performances and things like that. I don't think...I think the offensive line is getting a little bit more criticism than they deserve. We certainly didn't dominate the line of scrimmage, but we didn't dominate anything. We didn't dominate the defense. They had almost 450 yards against us. We've got a lot of work to do. And part of it obviously, without getting into alibis, is we've got a little different cast of characters every week because of injuries. I had forgotten to mention Sukay. Sukay was coming on. Was leading our team in interceptions. All of the sudden he gets a bump and it's a serious one. It didn't look like it was that serious, but he's out for the year and they're going to have to operate on the area that was affected. So, we've got a job to do, period. It's doable, but it's going to take a lot of commitment by a lot of people.